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History of Rowing at SHC

Sacred Heart College together with Mt Albert Grammar School were the two schools that pioneered secondary school rowing in Auckland before World War II. Racing was held in St Mary’s Bay (which has since been reclaimed for the motorway leading on to the Harbour Bridge) from 1936 onwards and after eight-oar rowing was introduced the winning crew was awarded the title Head of the Harbour. This title is still awarded to the winning crew of the under 18 Eights though the regatta in recent years has been held on Lake Pupuke on the North Shore.

Secondary School rowing began at the national level in 1947 and Sacred Heart was one of the four crews who competed in eights for the first time for the Maadi cup – a trophy that resulted from racing among the troops stationed at Maadi in Egypt during the War. That first race was held on the Wanganui River and along with Sacred Heart, MAGS, St Augustine’s College and Wanganui Technical College completed the field. Sacred Heart was placed second to MAGS but in 1948 when the race was held in Auckland the College turned the tables. This is the one and only time the College has won what has become a very prestigeous and highly sought-after trophy in secondary school sport.

Rowing was well established at the College by 1955 when it was relocated to Glen Innes but this move saw the College drop out of this sport. However in the late 1960’s a few boys were taken under the wing of the St George’s Rowing Club based on the Tamaki River in Panmure and from this came a revival of the sport in the College in the 1970s under the guidance of Brother Terence and parents Joe Hall and John Farrell. Several titles were won both at the Auckland and the NZ Secondary Schools Rowing Championships – the former now known as the Head of the Harbour regatta and the latter as the Maadi Cup regatta.
When Brother Terence moved to Hamilton in 1978 rowing waned again until he and parent Peter Jansen revived it 1995. Brother Terence left for Tonga in 1998 so Peter gathered around him a group of parents (some of whom had been the rowers of the 1970s) who enthusiastically created the Rowing Parents Committee that has seen rowing at Sacred Heart go from strength both on the local and national scene. In 1999 the school began to purchase the good fleet of boats that it now owns and these were moved to the shed of the Auckland Rowing Club in Ian Shaw Park Mt Wellington further up the Tamaki River.